1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a transport apparatus and a transport method. In particular, the present invention relates to a transport method of a substrate holder during manufacturing of a layered 3-dimensional semiconductor apparatus and an apparatus that realizes this transport method. The present patent application claims priority based on Japanese Patent Publication Application No. 2007-164081 filed on Jun. 21, 2007, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
2. Related Art
Techniques are advancing for bonding substrates, wafers, and the like to each other during manufacturing of a device having a stereoscopic structure such as a MEMS or a layered 3-dimensional semiconductor apparatus having layered wafer levels. The development of apparatuses used for this purpose is also progressing. For example, see Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-302858. With such a bonding apparatus, when transporting a temporarily fixed layered wafer body, transportation conditions are adopted so as not to cause misalignment between the wafers.
Regarding the transport conditions of the bonding apparatus, if misalignment is caused for some reason after two wafers are aligned and the misaligned wafers then undergo electrode bonding by a pressure applying and heating process, the resulting layered semiconductor apparatus does not function properly, which causes a drop in the yield when manufacturing semiconductor apparatuses. Therefore, transport of the aligned wafers without causing misalignment is desired, and so is detection of misalignment between the wafers prior to the pressure applying and heating process.